Suicide Squad's Harley Quinn Has a Secret History With Batman

You are the Princess Shireen of the House Baratheon, and you are my daughter.

She's known to be quite vexing, but one thing we didn't know about Harley Quinn — until now — is that the Jersey girl has more of a history with Gotham's Caped Crusader than the trailers for Suicide Squad suggest.

In the movie, like in the comics, Amanda Waller assembles a team of supervillains who can "do some good" — with a bomb implanted in their necks. Whilst the presence of Batman and the Joker in the movie suggested the action might unfold in Gotham City, the first image released teased that the squad had been holed up in Belle Reve Penitentiary, the prison inhabited by metahumans.

So far, so straightforward. But in a new interview with Fandango, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who plays Killer Croc, dropped a plot tease that suggests Belle Reve could have been swapped out for Arkham. Spoilers ahead:

"All of these so-called villains are villains that Batman has had some history with and caught and brought into Arkham Prison. So whether it comes before or after I’m not sure, but I do know we’ve all been captured by him and imprisoned in Arkham, so we’ve all got a gripe to bear against the ol’ Bat."

The interesting thing about this is that Arkham Prison isn't actually a place; in the DC Comics Universe, Arkham is strictly an asylum for the insane — and in Jeremiah Arkham's own words, a place for the "sickest psychopaths" of Gotham City.

This tweet from director David Ayer showing files of patient assessments and progress notes backs up the theory:

Fair to assume, then, that Amanda Waller assembles her squad in Arkham.

Considering that so many of Batman's most famous stories have roots in the asylum, its merger with Belle Reve might suggest that Batman's own solo movie will draw from comic book arcs like The Dark Knight Returns. Kind of a big deal, right?

Batman to Harley Quinn's rescue in "Suicide Squad."

With the confirmation that Batman is the one responsible for putting the entire squad in Arkham to begin with, it seems he has a personal history with Harley Quinn — which might explain why he'd be so quick to come to her rescue during those Batmobile chase scenes that culminate in her taking a dip.

But the question remains: Will we actually see the Caped Crusader putting Harley and the rest of the bad guys away? Why did Ayer swap out Belle Reve for Arkham, and will that swap be an important aspect of the film's narrative?

Seeing as the Suicide Squad is a revolving door of supervillains, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that we'll have met one or two more of Batman's rogues than we first imagined by the time the credits roll. Fingers crossed...

Suicide Squad hits on August 5. Check out the Blitz trailer above for the 23rd time, and tell me: